Honda will bring back an extinct car. In April, Daihatsu killed the last surviving topless kei car. And now, Honda wants to bring it back. This is what Honda CEO Takanobu Ito intimated to me – and a large room full of other reporters – this morning at the Honda HQ in Tokyo. His company will also launch the second generation NSX, will give you a new Civic Type-R for you to Euro-trash while it tries to achieve its goal of becoming the fastest front-wheel-drive vehicle on the Nurburgring. Wait, there is more. Read More >
China’s Hawtai was quick to cash in on the nationalistic sentiments in China with its Hawtai Baolige Patriotic Edition. According to Carnewschina, the Patriotic Edition “is painted in China-red, with five yellow stars as in the Chinese flag and some waves around the rear wheels that likely refer to the disputed islands.” The trucklet is 100% Nippon-free, as far as we can tell. Read More >
“’Even if China becomes nothing but tombstones, we must exterminate the Japanese; even if we have to destroy our own country, we must take back the Diaoyu Islands.”
With the appropriate attention received, China is ready to ratchet down anti-Japanese sentiment. Beijing public security authorities on Wednesday urged the public not to stage protests against Japan, writes The Nikkei [sub]. Chinese dealers of the Volkswagen Group did not get the memo. They cause major trouble for Volkswagen. Especially in Japan. Read More >
Earlier this year, Nissan Leaf owners in Arizona started to observe bars missing from the charge state display of their cars. Instead of the 12 bars that signal a full battery, some saw only 10 or less. This spread like the Arizona wildfires through the EV community. As of today, the discussion at the Mynissanleaf forum has swelled to 373 pages. Nissan looked at the affected cars, and so far has not rendered a verdict. Or maybe it did. 12 Leaf owners did assemble one night to prove Nissan wrong. Read More >
Electioneering is redlining. One indicator: The Michigan Republican Party is protesting loudly against an improbable stunt: A Toyota Tundra will pull the retired space shuttle Endeavor to its final resting place at the California Science Center (CSC). This has the Reps up in arms: “”Barack Obama acts as if he single handedly built the U.S. domestic auto industry, meanwhile, a symbol of American greatness will be towed to its final resting place by a foreign competitor, forever cementing the image of a Toyota truck towing a retired space shuttle,” Matt Frendewey, director of communications for the Michigan Republican Party, told the Detroit News. Read More >
Some bloggers see the BRZ/FR-S (hereinafter hachi-roku) pocket racers as the second coming of Christ, others declared them as declassed by the Hyundai Genesis, the Mazda Miata PRHT (pfft), and of course by the Ford Mustang GT. The hachi-roku may not be the fastest around the race track with Jack Baruth on the wheel and an AWOL timing device. There is one race which they consistently win: The race off dealers’ lots. Read More >
History tends to repeat itself – in different ways. One of the secrets of Japanese quality was a shortage of money. Bad quality was seen as waste – known as the detested “muda” to scholars of Kaizen. Lines had to be made more flexible; re-tooling had to be made easier, all because there was no money to waste. Likewise, China is getting better at making cars. One reason: It’s getting better at cutting corners, says a report by Reuters. Read More >
Around 1,000 Chinese fishing boats are bearing down on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, while Japanese carmakers in China are buttoning-up their Chinese car factories. Read More >
Daimler, or rather one of its Chinese customers, is paying late penance for the ill-fated merger with Chrysler. A Chinese patriot proudly presented this trophy on Weibo, the Chinese version of the (blocked in China) Twitter. He said he took it off a “Japanese Mitsubishi” which he savaged in rage against Japan’s occupation of the Diaoyu islands.
Mitsubishi Motors fell into the hands of Daimler through the merger with Chrysler. After that fell apart. Mitsubishi soon was back on its own. Read More >
Anti-Japanese demonstrations grew ugly in China over the weekend, and it were cars that took the brunt. Chinese took to the streets after Tokyo said it would nationalize the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. The uninhabited rocks are administered by Japan but claimed by China. Tens of thousands protested this weekend – and vented their rage on cars.
One of the first victims was a Honda CR-V, oddly owned by the police in the southern city of Shenzhen. Shenzhen’s finest were unable to protect their property.
As it becomes increasingly dangerous to own a Japanese car in China, people devise unorthodox ways to protect their cherished car. Read More >
Honda has developed a new, simple, gasoline-electric hybrid system which “will set a new standard for fuel efficiency and recapture the success of the CVCC engine 40 years ago,” writes Reuters. Read More >
You can tell immediately that it is a concept: It has suicide doors. Nissan will show the fuel-cell propelled TeRRA SUV concept at the 2012 Paris Motor Show that opens on September 27. Read More >
A long simmering dispute of islands which both Japan and China claim as theirs has risen in temperature in China. There have been anti-Japanese demonstrations in Chinese cities, and on-line calls for boycotts of Japanese goods. Now the row is officially affecting sales of Japanese cars in China, Dong Yang, secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), told Reuters today in Beijing. Read More >
The hordes of Chinese and Japanese reporters roaming the halls of the Chengdu Global Automotive Forum in Chengdu were not really interested in exports. They were sniffing blood. There are tensions between China, Japan, and a few other countries over some rocks in the sea. The rocks are called Diaoyu by the Chinese, Senkaku by the Japanese, and choice words by many others. Nissan’s COO Toshiyuki Shiga sat on the podium, next to the always photogenic Atsushi Niimi. The Japanese were flanked by a BAIC president and a Dongfeng CEO. The reporters wanted to know: How bad is it? Read More >
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